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Working Paper
2004/1
Literature Review:
Sociology and Risk
Jens O. Zinn
Zinn
Contact
Author:
Jens O. Zinn
j.zinn@kent.ac.uk
Tel.:
This literature review starts from the middle of the 1990s, when
publications summarizing the state of the art of risk research were
published (e.g. Krimsky/Golding 1992, The Royal Society 1992,
Krohn/Krcken 1993) and social sciences broadened the debate about
risks beyond the technical considerations of the engineers and the natural
scientists, thus explaining the divergence between public and expert
views of risk (Krimsky/Golding 1992, 355).
The state of the art of sociological risk research in the early 1990s was a
set of different concepts and empirical results rather than a general
theoretical approach (e.g. Japp 2000). The two central theories of
sociological risk research which started to dominate the field in the early
1990s were the Risk and Culture approach of Douglas and Wildavsky
(1982) and the Risk Society approach of Ulrich Beck (1986, 1992). The
following overview of sociological publications on risk or risk research
focuses on the main stream of argumentation in sociological conceptions
and research on risk in period up to the present, with an emphasis on
noteworthy contributions and developments.
This overview has some limitations. The first limitation is the time frame
which considers only publications since 1995. The second limitation is
that I will rather focus on theoretical and conceptual questions than on
empirical results. The third limitation concerns the journals taken into
consideration. You will find a list on the end of this review paper together
with the books and certain articles considered.
The review is divided in several sections. The first section gives a general
overview of the different approaches and conceptual ideas found in recent
publications. The second section gives an overview of the previous
sociological literature.
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Certainty defined as a form how uncertainty and certainty are related in order to
enable people, institutions or societies to act.
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about perception of risk, simply because it has been assumed that this is the
meaning of the debate to the public. In other words, research often looks for
risk, and finds it, when it isn't necessarily there (Hobson-West forthcoming). .
In the debate over vaccination, however, we need reminding that risk is just
one possible response to uncertainty, and represents our attempt to place order
on an uncertain world by making the 'incalculable calculable' (Beck 1994,
181)"
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Scott Lash develops a similar argument with the thesis of risk culture
(2000, 47ff.). He criticises the risk society approach which at least
accommodates an institutionally ordered society. The mode of
organization of risk society is a response to new challenges forced upon
the world by technologies and practices. Against this risk culture includes
all kinds of sense-making practices.
Risk cultures lie in non-institutional and anti-institutional sociations. Their
media are not procedural norms but substantive values. Their governing
figurations are not rules but symbols: they are less a hierarchical ordering that
a horizontal disordering. Their fluid quasi-membership is as likely to be
collective as individual, and their concern is less with utilitarian interests than
the fostering of the good life Risk cultures are based less in cognitive
than in aesthetic reflexivity. (ibid)
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Risk Society. The projects research was undertaken between 1996 and
1999, and was funded by the EU Targeted Socio-Economic Research
Programme 4 on Social Exclusion (Chamberlayne et al. 2002, 1). The aim
of the research was to investigate the experience of individuals who
found themselves excluded, or at risk of exclusion, from important
spheres of life in their societies (Chamberlayne et al. 2002, 1). The risk
categories the network referred to were early retirement, loss of work for
traditional industrial workers, unemployment among graduates, and
unemployment among unqualified young adults as well as single
parenthood and migration or membership of an ethnic minority.
Against quantitative and standardised research strategies, the focus of
biographical research is to explore the individuals life journey through
the view of the subject in their larger social contexts. Biographical
research asks how individuals experience the society they live in. The
purpose of the sociobiographical approach is to avoid the
overgeneralization and abstraction of many social research methods,
which often reduce individuals to aggregates, averages, or bundles of
variables, and which lose sight of the coherence of individual lives. The
sociobiographical method seeks to capture the dimensions of
consciousness and subjectivity, as well as the objective constraints that
shape individual lives. The focus is the subjects interpretation of life
situations, and the choices in response to them (ibid 3). In demarcation of
the rational choice approach subjects are seen as persons that choose
courses of action for emotional and moral reasons, as well as for material
ones (ibid 4)
Biographical research examines the difficulties of the individual subject
in managing life transitions and changes. By doing so it focuses on the
ways in which individuals maintain their identity or restore an injured
identity. The approach of biographical identity (Fischer-Rosenthal
2000) has the advantage that it contains a dimension of time in contrast to
identity constructions referring to values or orientations at a certain
moment or in a specific situation. This allows reconstructions of logics of
action or structuration behind current self-representations. It could be
supposed that such biographical constructions enable us to reconstruct the
complexity of biographical experiences in social contexts and the
influence of, for example, media on these experiences as a ground for risk
perception and response.
The media, risk and risk communication
The significant role of the media in the construction of and
communication about risk is widely recognized in risk-research as well in
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Compare Kitzinger 1999, 62ff. for an overview of some more stable research results.
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Trust
Since the erosion of public trust in institutions like the government, the
media, the churches or the family (Pharr/Putnam 2000, Inglehart 1999),
trust attracts more and more attention in social sciences. Although trust
seems to be a significant variable in risk perception as well as rational
decision-making or social relations, there is still no general model of trust
developed. The usage of the term by scientists as well as by lay people is
unsystematic and it is often difficult to decide whether trust or some other
construction is being measured in a standardized survey. This suggests
that trust is a multidimensional construct, not easy to conceptualise and
referring to different issues, such as self-esteem or belief.
There are more and more attempts to conceptualise the notion of trust in
sociology (e.g. Misztal 1996, Mlling 2001, Nuissl 2002) but the early
statement that social science research on trust has produced a good deal
of conceptual confusion regarding the meaning of trust and its place in
social life (Lewis/Weigert 1985, 975) seems to be still valid.
This systematic work leads to some general insights: Trust is a middle
state between knowledge and ignorance (Simmel 1968, 393). Trust is on
the one hand incompatible with complete ignorance of the possibility and
probability of future events, and on the other hand with emphatic belief
when the anticipation of disappointment is excluded. Someone who trusts
has an expectation directed to a special event. The expectations are based
on the ground of incomplete knowledge about the probability and
incomplete control about the occurrence of the event. Trust is of
relevance for action and has consequences for the trusting agent if trust is
confirmed or disappointed. Thus, trust is connected with risk (Nuissl
2002, 89f.).
Up to now there have been few attempts to work out a systematic scheme
of different forms of trust in sociology. Psychological work in this area
appears to be more developed, for example the classification of Oswald
(1994, 122). He distinguishes between trust in contracts, trust in
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friendship and trust in love on the one hand, and trust in foreign issues
and trust in systems on the other. These different kinds of trust may be
distinguished along four dimensions, the transparency of rules, the
assumed reliability, the tolerance of irregularities and the suggestion of
goodwill. Regarding the problem of risk, trust in contracts and in systems
(as science and government) is of special significance.
In the case of trust in contracts the rules are clear and the assumed
reliability is high whereas the tolerance of irregularities is low. The
category of trust in systems is analytically not well developed. We can
assume that the transparency of rules is low, the assumed reliability is
relatively high and the tolerance of irregularities is low (Bon).
However, sociological theories which suppose a general change in
modernity (Beck, Giddens) assume that with the erosion of traditional
institutions and scientific knowledge trust becomes an issue more often
produced actively by individuals than institutionally guaranteed.
Independent from the insight that social action in general is dependent
more or less on trust there empirical results in the context of risk
perception and risk taking indicate:
Trust is much easier to destroy than to built.
If trust is once undermined it is more difficult to restore it.
Familiarity with a place, a situation or a person produces trust.
Persons will develop trust if a person or situation has ascriptive
characteristics positively valued.
Trust seems to be something that is produced individually by experience
and over time and cant be immediately and with purpose be produced by
organizations or governments.
Such a more complex view on trust is supported by risk-communication
studies which unsuccessfully try to clear up the relationship between trust
in information source and impact of information on risk perceptions
(Frewer et al. 2003, 1131f.).
International studies show that societal factors influence the trust of
people in society. A study that tests six theories of trust by data from
seven societies (1999-2001) produce the following results
(Delhey/Newton 2003):
Social trust tends to be high among citizens who believe that there
are few severe social conflicts and where the sense of public safety
is high.
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Social networks are associated with trust; those who are successful
in life trust more, or are more inclined by their personal experience
to do so.
Finally individual theories seem to work best in societies with
higher levels of trust, and societal ones in societies with lower
levels of trust.
Anheier and Kendall (2002, 347) mention a systematic difference in the
conceptualisations of trust by economists and sociologists. In the realm
of economics, trust in market transactions is defined as an efficient
mechanism to economize on transaction costs. Trust is something
rationally given or refused (e.g. Coleman 1990). In sociology the idea of
trust is something given in advance and is taken for granted. Trust may be
developed by routines (Giddens 1990, 33), the duration of experiences,
shared values or positive valued characteristics. Trust is for sociologists
something that is explicitly not rationally produced.
Literature included
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Journals
British Journal of Sociology
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